Lucile
Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1860. Very Good. Item #000593
Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1860. First American Edition [Author's Edition]. 16mo; 352pp + 15 pages of Ticknor and Fields adverts at back. Blue cloth on boards with blind-embossed front panel and gold-stamped spine lettering set within an elaborate gilt surround. Brick endpapers. Gilt on all edges of textblock.
Binding eroded at crown and foot of spine and along edges; split beginning in middle of front joint, but not extending to top or bottom. Spine cloth and stamping darkened. Previous 19th-century owners' names on first blank page. Binding weakening but all pages secure. Light foxing throughout.
Meredith/Bulwer-Lytton's best-selling verse novel went through countless editions and many publishers before going out of print in 1938. This is the scarce first American edition. Our heroine, Lucile, is torn between an English and a French lover in her youth, but retires to saintly wisdom many decades and 5000+ lines of verse later as a nun, watching benevolently over the love lives of the next generation.
Price: $60.00